If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to the gospel of John. We’re taking a break from our series in the book of Hebrews to look at the Gospel – what is the Gospel? There are wonderful summarizing statements of the Gospel all through the New Testament; there is none more familiar, more beloved, or clearer than this one. This passage comes in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and one of the most learned teachers in all of Israel, a man named Nicodemus, who was confused by what Jesus had been teaching about the new birth. Nicodemus had heard Jesus’ teaching that in order to see the kingdom of God, in order to understand God’s kingdom, to be a part of God’s kingdom, you have to be born again. And Nicodemus didn’t understand this. How…

The Lord's Day Morning October 28, 2012 “Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Pauline Prayer Request” 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III A very appropriate hymn for this Lord's Day. Four hundred and ninety-five years ago on Wednesday, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five points of debate on the church door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, and sparked the Protestant Reformation. Five hundred million Christians in the world today trace their spiritual birth to the truths that were articulated by Luther and the other great magisterial reformers. We’re just five years away from the five hundredth anniversary of that event. Well, if you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. We've gone to…

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 148. This psalm is one of five nature psalms that you find in the Psalter. It is a psalm that, like the other nature poems, handles its material in such a way to reflect all praise to God. So instead of nature worship, it is a call for nature to worship God. Instead of worshiping nature as if it were the product of its own self-creation, we're acknowledging God as the author of the entire created order and calling upon that created order to worship God. Now this psalm is filled with doxologies. Doxologies are little words of praise or commands or exhortations to praise God. And then alongside of those doxologies, especially in the first part of the psalm and in the first part of the second half of the psalm, there are…

The Lord's Day Morning October 21, 2012 “Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Early Benediction” 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, if you’ll look with me at the last two verses in that chapter. You will notice immediately it's just one sentence; these two verses comprise one sentence and that sentence is a benediction. Some scholars of early Christianity call…

The Lord's Day Morning October 14, 2012 “Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Saved through Sanctification” 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We’re going to be looking at verses 13 to 15 together today. In the Christian life, there are certain truths that we need to grasp firmly and hang on to in order to live in the trials and the tribulations that we must…

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 138. As you’re turning there, allow yourself to look at the headings of the next several psalms. In fact, if you’d look at the headings of the psalms from 138 all the way to 145. Tonight we are beginning a group of eight psalms, all of which are attributed to David. These are the last psalms in the Psalter that belong to David. He wrote almost half of the songs and these eight songs are the final ones included in the…

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 136. As you turn there you’ll notice how many phrases and how many similarities there are between this psalm and the psalm that we studied last Lord's Day Evening, Psalm 135. There are a few items I want to draw to your attention, some of them that you will see in the psalm itself as we prepare to hear the reading of God's Word. In the Jewish tradition this psalm was known as “The Great Hallel.” Now you’ll…

It's hard to sing that song and not go on to the fifth stanza where the resolution comes, but we’ll be able to sing that, God willing, at the end of the service tonight. I love Luther's rendition of Psalm 130. You can sense his own investment in the truth of this psalm even in the way he paraphrases it, in the way that he roots it in the glorious story of Christ's redemption of it. Well we're in Psalm 130 tonight and when you approach this psalm you have to ask yourself a…

The Lord's Day Morning April 15, 2012 “175 and Counting: The Disputed Gospel” Romans 5:8 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Romans chapter 5, and especially verse 8, although I'd like you to look from verse 6 to 10. We’re going to pick up three other phrases right around Romans 5:8 to help us in the study that we're going to this morning. Last week, when we were in 1 Corinthians 15, we saw Paul's phrase that…